


Facet

by Laperclip



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Love Confessions, M/M, mention of bodily fluids, no smut just feelings, soft angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:33:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23944738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laperclip/pseuds/Laperclip
Summary: The press of Ashe’s thumb in Yuri’s palm, gentle and firm, pins him to the bed like a butterfly to a board. Ashe’s fingers are flushed with cold on the back of his hand, and part of Yuri—the part that yearns for the world to be good—wants to warm them with his own.Most of him just wants to fly away before it’s too late.Nothing can save Yuri from the gentle torture of being known, deeply and wholly and entirely unexpectedly, by a man like Ashe.
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc
Comments: 8
Kudos: 61





	Facet

The press of Ashe’s thumb in Yuri’s palm, gentle and firm, pins him to the bed like a butterfly to a board. Ashe’s fingers are flushed with cold on the back of his hand, and part of Yuri—the part that yearns for the world to be good—wants to warm them with his own.

Most of him just wants to fly away before it’s too late.

“I… I’m in love with you.”

Ashe’s words brush over his shoulder like embers, warm and sincere and unaware of their destructive power. They burn pinpricks into his skin.

“I just needed to say so before… before we do this again. I-it feels unfair, somehow, if you don’t know.”

Yuri’s heart sinks a little. His voice is measured when he asks, “Are you sure?”

It’s a stupid question, he thinks, with their clothing half-discarded and the smell of sweat and arousal already thickening the space between their bodes. Perhaps he shouldn’t have said it out loud (and he’s sure Ashe is thinking the same thing). But it’s there now, all of it, and _are you sure_ is the rawest truth Yuri can muster with Ashe’s mouth hanging inches from his own and _those words_ hanging in the air.

Yuri has received a banquet of confessions over the course of his life. He coaxes them with surgical efficiency from people who have something he wants. Love is a tool that requires finesse and a certain amount of distance to leverage. It’s not this— this clumsy _thing_ that he steals from Ashe in the space between war councils. It’s not cold hands and warm bodies and feeling pinned under the scrutiny of green eyes that are always just a little bit too sad to be beautiful.

_Are you sure._ What a stupid question. But it’s so dreadfully fucking important. Are you sure you don’t love some pretty reflection of me? Some amalgam of chipped masks and spare parts that only exists in your head, or in our pasts, or in the early-morning sunbeam that makes the world look just a little bit softer than it really is?

Yuri tries not to be bitter when he thinks, which part of me do you _think_ you love?

And Ashe withdraws a little, leaving a cold impression in the air where his breath had been. He can see the disbelief on Yuri’s face, the new hesitation in the set of his shoulders— and Ashe’s expression falls a little.

As it should. (The satisfaction of being right is piercing and sour and unpleasantly familiar.)

“Come on, Sparrow,” Yuri begs, hiding behind a wry chuckle. “You’re smarter than that.” The thoughts come, unbidden and frustrated, as he wills Ashe to understand. Surely you know already. I’m nothing like you. I’m not soft _._ I’m not kind. Under all this paint I’m chapped lips and dirt-caked fingernails. There’s blood in my mouth and cum in my hair and I’m going to tear off your wings and eat you whole if you’ll let me.

But those big green eyes still look right through him, and Ashe doesn’t rise to the self-flagellating bait. His smile—thin, but earnest as it ever was—doesn’t waver. There’s a gentle certainty in his stubborn jaw, cut from something that used to be soft, that betrays the truth of his conviction. “Of course I’m sure.”

Yuri’s frown shifts upwards at the seam, and his heart lurches in his chest.

_Of course he’s sure_. If he’s come to the point of saying it, then Ashe has been sure for a very long time.

(You’re greedy, Yuri admonishes himself. You’re taking advantage. You don’t deserve this.)

(Yuri wants so badly to deserve this.)

“Ashe… I’m not—”

Not what? Not a good person? As though a line like that would work on a man like Ashe. And yet the stubborn fool persists, pressing Yuri’s hand so gently into the mattress like it could shatter if he pushed too hard—(goddess, Yuri wishes he would push harder)—so Yuri offers the last shred of reason he has. “You don’t even know my real name.”

Unease finally weathers the edges of Ashe’s smile, and _of course_ it’s regarding the wrong thing entirely. “I-it’s okay if you don’t feel the same—”

“That’s not what I said.”

Yuri tries not to relish how Ashe’s face softens when that particular fear is stamped out.

And then the breath is taken from his lungs entirely as Ashe brings Yuri’s hand to his lips and brushes his knuckles with a kiss. It suffocates the heaviness from the air between them like a blanket over a fire, and Yuri is quite sure the pounding of his heart can be heard at least three rooms over.

“I know who you are,” Ashe says, lashes fluttering down to survey the crests and ridges of the imprisoned digits. “I think that counts.”

For once, Yuri finds himself at a staggering disadvantage.

He was not prepared for this. He was not prepared for _Ashe_. To be seen, to be vulnerable, to be stripped down to his barest elements, wretched and muddied as they are, and yet still handled with a warmth and gentleness that he stopped believing in a long time ago.

You’re a fool, Yuri thinks, and he’s not sure if it’s to Ashe or to himself. It doesn’t matter, really, because he is capturing Ashe’s lips with his own as he thinks it.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on twitter @laperclip for yuriashe art and also some words sometimes!


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